Manually installing Flash Player in Chromium (Mac OS X)

[Stanton McCandlish]

I can't get Adobe Flash Player to installed for Chromium under OS X 10.9. The installer just fails (and always wants to fire up Firefox, my default browser, at the end).  Surely there's a way to manual tweak something?

[PhistucK]

​Ask this at a Adobe forum, since you mentioned that the installation failed.​

☆PhistucK

On Sun, Jun 21, 2015 at 6:41 AM, Stanton McCandlish <smcca...@gmail.com> wrote:

I can't get Adobe Flash Player to installed for Chromium under OS X 10.9. The installer just fails (and always wants to fire up Firefox, my default browser, at the end).  Surely there's a way to manual tweak something?

--
--
Chromium Discussion mailing list: chromium...@chromium.org
View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe:
http://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/group/chromium-discuss

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to chromium-discu...@chromium.org.

[MSI Team]

Which version of Flash are you trying to install? Are you trying to install the NPAPI or PPAPI flash? Which version of Chromium are you using? Can you reproduce the issue on other browsers?

[Stanton McCandlish]

NPAPI or PPAPI: No idea. Just whatever is installed by the Adobe Flash Player installer that Chromium itself directed me to.  Chromium version: 43. Happening in other browsers: No; Chromium was the only browser on my systems with no Flash player (probably because I've been using it since before it wanted to allow anyone to install plug-ins, and if you wanted to use any you had to install them in Chrome, then manually copy them over to Chromium).

The workaround turned out to be moving all copies (including on mounted backup drives) of Firefox into the Trash, then running the FP installer, then putting Firefox back afterward.  This tells me that the FP installer is trying to do things with whatever the default browser is, whether it needs that done or not.

On Sunday, June 21, 2015 at 1:17:33 PM UTC-7, MSI Team wrote:

Which version of Flash are you trying to install? Are you trying to install the NPAPI or PPAPI flash? Which version of Chromium are you using? Can you reproduce the issue on other browsers?\

> On Sun, Jun 21, 2015 at 6:41 AM, Stanton McCandlish <smcca...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Stanton McCandlish]

Nah. My interest was in resolving a user-level Chromium problem, for myself and any other users experiencing the same problem. And I did so (see my other recent post for what the workaround is).  I have no interest in helping Adobe debug their products' installers unless they want to pay me to be a QA tester.  >;-)

[MSI Team]

The version installed with Google Chrome and Chromium is the PPAPI (Pepper) version and the version numbers should be either 18.0 r0 or 17.0 r0 (17.0 in older versions). Chromium 43 is outdated (M45 is the latest version on trunk). Anyway, this appears to be more of a Flash Player installer bug than a Chromium bug?

[yurikoles]

http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2015/06/chrome-stable-update.html

MONDAY, JUNE 22, 2015
Chrome Stable Update
The stable channel has been updated to 43.0.2357.130 for Windows, Mac, and Linux.  A partial list of changes is available in the log.

So Stanton just wants to use stable version.

[PhistucK]

You do realize that your workaround means it is a Flash Installer issue and not a Chromium issue, which is why my request (that you ask the Adobe folks, because this is not the right group for such issues) is totally on spot, right?

☆PhistucK

[MSI Team]

Yes, this definitely appears to be a Flash Player installer issue. Adobe products and their installers have their own issue trackers, except for the fact that some Flash issues are tracked at the Chromium issue tracker, but (as far as I know) they are not open source.

[Stanton McCandlish]

On Wednesday, June 24, 2015 at 9:41:24 PM UTC-7, yurikoles wrote:

The stable channel has been updated to 43.0.2357.130 for Windows, Mac, and Linux.  A partial list of changes is available in the log.

So Stanton just wants to use stable version.

Yep. I don't do beta testing any longer, except on a machine I don't do real work on, like my Win8.1 tablet.  My Mac Pro is a production machine.

On Thursday, June 25, 2015 at 10:52:10 AM UTC-7, MSI Team wrote:

Yes, this definitely appears to be a Flash Player installer issue. Adobe products and their installers have their own issue trackers, except for the fact that some Flash issues are tracked at the Chromium issue tracker, but (as far as I know) they are not open source.

That "except" phrase gets at why I posted here.  I repeat: My goal was to find a solution to the problem for myself and any other Mac Chromium users encountering it. Which organization's ultimate fault the problem was isn't of tremendous concern to me. This list is archived and searchable, mission accomplished.

On Wednesday, June 24, 2015 at 10:44:35 PM UTC-7, PhistucK wrote:

You do realize that your workaround means it is a Flash Installer issue and not a Chromium issue, which is why my request (that you ask the Adobe folks, because this is not the right group for such issues) is totally on spot, right?

I didn't need to ask the Adobe folks. I fixed it on my own, and have let others know how to do so (i.e., temporarily trash all copies of your default browser if it's not Chromium). I call that a "win" for everyone, except maybe Adobe. My own experience with Adobe is that their cycles for resolving reported problems are slow, when they engage at all.  I have no interest in helping them debug their near-monopolistic products, but I do have an interest in helping the Chromium free software community work around Adobe lameness.  Adobe's bug tracker doesn't even have an option for reporting problems with Chromium.  Just to be nice, I filed a bug report about it over there anyway, under "Chrome (all)" for lack of any other sane option: https://bugbase.adobe.com/index.cfm?event=bug&id=4013681

This is probably a waste of time if they can't even get a handle on the idea that Chromium exists.

On Wednesday, June 24, 2015 at 3:16:12 PM UTC-7, MSI Team wrote:

The version installed with Google Chrome and Chromium is the PPAPI (Pepper) version and the version numbers should be either 18.0 r0 or 17.0 r0 (17.0 in older versions)

Yeah, it's 18.0.0.194; Type (now that I have it installed and can see it): PPAPI (out-of-process). 

[Stanton McCandlish]

This no longer works, as of September 2015 (and now Oct.)  No matter what I do, the Mac version of Chromium will not do Flash. Not sure what version this broke in (I have been bouncing around between various Dev and Canary builds).  You can even manually edit ~/Library/Application Support/Chromium/Default/Preferences to point directly at the PPAPI Flash plugin, after copying it out of Chrome and putting it into /Applications/Chromium.app/Contents/Versions/[version number]/Chromium Framework.framework/Internet Plug-Ins, mirroring the Chrome installation and Preferences file down to the last details in the plugins section of the JSON in the Preferences file, and it will not work. Also tried pointing it explicitly at the copy inside Chrome, and at the newer version installed by Adobe in "/Library/Internet plugins", to no avail. Guess I'm just going to relegate Chromium to a dev browser that I don't use day-to-day.  Too much hassle to keep having to flip over to another browser and reload the same URL on every other site I go to because their news videos, Flash-driven menus, etc., don't work in Chromium any longer.  This is definitely NOT an Adobe installer issue, it's a Chromium issue.  I've even tried tricks that work with the Linux versions:

  ~/.bash_profile:

    export PEPPER_FLASH_VERSION=$(grep '"version":' /Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/PepperFlashPlayer/manifest.json | /opt/local/bin/grep -Po '(?<=version": ")(?:\d|\.)*')

  /etc/chromium-browser/default and /etc/chromium/default:
    CHROMIUM_FLAGS="--ppapi-flash-path=/Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/PepperFlashPlayer/PepperFlashPlayer.plugin --ppapi-flash-version=$PEPPER_FLASH_VERSION" 

No effect at all. I've tried a clean install of Flash, with Chromium set as the default browser, to see if Adobe's own installer would do it right. Didn't work.  If you go to chome://flash it says it is not installed, every time. Weirdly, I find that the cache directories in "~/Library/Application Support/Chromium/Default/Pepper Data/Shockwave Flash" have material in them as recent as just a couple of days ago, despite the fact that I've not gotten the plugin to work in Chromium since early Sept.

If you have a version of Chromium that is presently working with Flash, you should probably archive a backup of the app, its "~/Library/Application Support/Chromium" directory, and the ~/Library/Preferences/org.chromium.Chromium.plist file.  My next experiment will be to revert back to a Stable build from around June or so, and see if I can get that to work, then try upgrading to a Dev build without breaking the Flash support.

[Julia Casado]

This worked for me:

1. Install the last version of Flash player from https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/
   
• Copy the version number in a text-editor or Notes app.
• Download version for Mac OSX and Chromium
2. You can launch Chromium with the last version of flash player enabled from command line:
   /Applications/Chromium.app/Contents/MacOS/Chromium --ppapi-flash-path=/Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/PepperFlashPlayer/PepperFlashPlayer.plugin --ppapi-flash-version=19.0.0.226
   Here is where you put the version that you copied from the Adobe website. This preferences won't be a default, I tried changing chrome://flags, plugins, components, but nothing stayed for next run.
   
3. Create a Dock launch icon for that command with Automator:
1. Create a new document of type Application
2. Library -> Utilities -> Run Shell Script
3. open -a "Chromium.app" --args --ppapi-flash-path=/Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/PepperFlashPlayer/PepperFlashPlayer.plugin --ppapi-flash-version=19.0.0.226
   
4. Ctrl+S Save where ever you like (Applications folder?)
5. Set icon for your new app: Applications folder -> right click in Chromium app -> Get info -> click on small icon (uppper-left corner) -> Ctrl+C. Where you saved your app, right click -> Get Info -> click on small icon -> Ctrl+V
6. Drag your new app to the Dock

This is by no means a final solution and requires editing for each flash player update.

[Timmy-42]

Hm, for me this changes nothing. Is this still working? Or are there newer approaches?

MAC OS X 10.9.5

Chromium version 61.0.3141.0
PPAPI-Plug-In-Version 26.0.0.131

[David Lassiter]

For what it's worth:

MAC OS X 10.6.8

Chromium 49.0.26.23.112 (64-bit) 

PPAPI-Plug-In-Version 26.0.0.133 (Beta)

Navigated to: /Applications/Chromium.app/Contents/Versions/49.0.2623.112/Chromium Framework.framework/Internet Plug-Ins/PepperFlash/PepperFlashPlayer.plugin

Default Flash plugin installed is version 21.0.0.213; swapped out the PepperFlashPlayer.plugin file in the "PepperFlash" folder for the 26.0.0.133 version I downloaded from Adobe; restarted Chromium; old version (21.0.0.213) still shows up in Chrome://Plugs-ins; BUT when you navigate to: https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player.html and test the Flash version via the Flash checker interface, version 26.0.0.133 shows up as active, and seems to function stably... 

Hope that helps : )